Research Facilities on the Macdonald Campus

McGill's Macdonald Campus, home to the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, the McGill School of Environment and the Institute of Parasitology, offers excellent teaching and research facilities.

The Emile A. Lods Agronomy Research Centre has excellent facilities for agronomic and agro-environmental field research, with research land, perennial plantations, buildings and specialized equipment. Qualified and professional assistance is available on site.

Bioresource Engineering Machine Shop

This machine shop operates in support of teaching, research and research contracts. All standard shop manufacturing techniques can be utilized on wood, metals, plastics, and other materials. The shop has machine laths of different sizes, large drill press, milling machine, sheet metal machines, wood working facilities, extensive welding (electric, gas, etc. ) capacity, etc.

The Mary Emily Clinical Nutrition Research Unit (MECNRU) is dedicated to in-patient and out-patient human nutrition experimentation using precisely controlled diets. It can support 12 research subjects on an in-patient basis. The facility is unique in Canada, in that it allows strict, in-house monitoring and testing of research subjects over prolonged periods while they consume diets prepared in house.

CT Scanning Laboratory for Agricultural and Environmental Research

Contact:pierre [dot] dutilleul [at] mcgill [dot] ca (E-mail )

This laboratory was established at Macdonald Campus in 2003. The facility, the first of its kind in Eastern Canada, enables the detailed, non-destructive study of plant, soil and animal structures, through 3-D images built from CT scans. Quantitative and statistical analyses are performed in a computer room adjacent to the CT scanner and operator rooms.

The only outdoor zoo on the island of Montreal, the Ecomuseum is located only a 5 minute drive from Macdonald Campus and showcases a wide variety of species native to Quebec. It is operated by the St. Lawrence Valley Natural History Society.

The Macdonald Campus Farm is comprised of several research and teaching facilities.

The R. Howard Webster Centre includes the Dairy Complex with its commercial-scale dairy, the Swine Complex, and the Donald McQueen Shaver Poultry Complex. Plant research and teaching can be carried out at the Emile A. Lods Agronomy Research Centre and the Horticulture Research Centre.

This facility is equipped with a BD FACSAria sorter and offers high speed fully sterile sorting and complex analytical services and the scientific expertise necessary to effectively use this technology. Researchers have the option to bring their samples for analysis or sorting, or to use in situ services.

The McGill University Herbarium collects, preserves and catalogues plant specimens for research into plant systematics, cytogenetics, morphology and ecology. Its collections include over 135,000 plant specimens, which includes Dr. Andrew F. Holmes personal collection, "The Lost Flora of Montreal", donated to McGill in 1856. It then formed the nucleus of what is now the McGill University Herbarium.

The Macdonald Campus has excellent facilities for horticultural field research, with research land, perennial plantations, buildings and specialized equipment. Qualified and professional assistance is available on site.

The Morgan Arboretum is a unique 245-hectare forest research station located on the Macdonald Campus in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue. A mosaic of remnant natural forest ecosystems, plantations, collection plantings of native and non-native trees species, and active and abandoned agricultural land, the Arboretum caters to researchers, educators and the general public.

Valacta, Dairy Production Centre of Expertise in Quebec and the Atlantic regions, improves the profitability and the sustainability of dairy farms by sensitizing producers to the multiple aspects of techno-economic performance of their herd and its’ management.